I'm very impressed with Quake II N64 overall. Raster Productions has delivered a 3D first-person shooter that is nearly just as fast and furious as the PC original, and one that features a strong multiplayer mode that is truly hard to come by on Nintendo 64. The game's smooth sense of speed and consistent framerate goes a long way and, when mixed with a plethora of options that include 4MB Expansion Pak support, customizable controls and player setups, newly added real-time lighting effects, lens-flares and other various visual goodies, I honestly don't see how gamers can go wrong. A few words of warning though: controls do feel a bit jerky without the use of the Expansion Pak, especially when entering large rooms with lots of polys. And, the four-player mode still suffers from slowdown -- even with the use of the Pak.

Overall, this is one superb conversion I feel no serious Nintendo gamer should be without, for it is a truly sterling effort on behalf of the developers, who have managed to create a further classic from an already classic game. Good job, fella’s.

If you've grown impatient waiting for Perfect Dark and were disappointed by Turok 2's multiplayer, Quake II will scratch your shooter itch. If, however, you've already been through its paces on your home computer, you might want to pass this one by.

If you are big into first person shooters then you should enjoy this game. I think I had higher expectations because I know Id is renowned for awesome games. I wish it was possible to save in the middle of the missions (or at least have check points) because there was more than one occasion where I had to motivate myself to start a level over. I think people who enjoy multi-player on a console should have hours of fragging fun. Just remember to repeat "this is not a PC game" and you should be fine.

Quake II is challenging and fun for solo players, thanks to missions that tend to be short and sweet. The split-screen mode accommodates up to four players, but due to a choppy frame-rate it's just barely playable. If you're hankering for some solo old-school shooting action however, Quake 2 is food for your trigger finger.

I really can't count how many sleepless nights the Quake series has caused me. I'd sit in front of my PC for eight to ten hours at a time, using the mouse as an extension of my body, killing as many of my fellow deathmatchers as I could find. Once the Quake II levels got boring, id Software released the Quake II point release, adding much-needed deathmatch-specific levels to the game. And on top of that, people hunched over their level editors were churning out more and more levels of varying quality every day. Add to that numerous homemade mods that brought entirely new gameplay modes (Rocket Arena 2 and JailBreak, just to name two of my favorites) to the Quake II engine, and you're looking at plenty of new, exciting experiences. The Nintendo 64 version of the game plays a competent game of Quake II. And for some - specifically those who don't have a PC powerful enough to play the original version of the game - that will be enough.

The single-player is a gruelling task, if only because of the enemies’ resilience to almost all kinds of weaponry, not to mention that hitting them is a bit difficult when you move so fast and your shots don’t line up with your crosshair. That’s not to say that it isn’t fun, but it does nevertheless require some patience. These last two issues are also present in the multiplayer mode, but given that each player is at the same disadvantage, it isn’t as big an issue. Moreover, the multiplayer feels surprisingly nippy for an N64 game and usually maintains a playable frame rate even with four players. It may not be as memorable or as deep in terms of gameplay as its Rare competition on the system, but Quake II is nevertheless entertaining, and especially worth experiencing if you miss the glory days of the arena multiplayer shooter.

In order to give this game a true litmus test, a few friends and I tossed it into the N64 and played around with it for about a half hour. Then we put Goldeneye in for a half hour and did the same. At the end, we all had to agree that, overall, we’d rather play Rare’s masterpiece than id’s port. On the whole, though, I enjoyed playing through the single-player missions, and while the multiplayer wasn’t the best in the world, it was still a lot of fun. As I said previously, if you’re a console gamer who has never played Quake 2 on the PC before, I can recommend the N64 port with no qualms whatsoever, but if you’re a PC veteran wondering if there is anything new here for you to sink your teeth into, the answer is an unfortunate “no.”

Quake II is a much better game than Quake on the PC, N64, and otherwise. The level design is much improved, because it's less boring and more varied. And for the N64 version, the four-player multi-player mode, which is one of the best on the system because it's fast and smooth, is a huge addition. If you want less adventure and stealth, and if you want more action, then Quake II is for you.

Someday I'll finish this game, but not now. I have a life to live. Jesus didn't put me on this planet to spew obscenities like a three-year-old Chinese crack whore from the Bronx with a CD coming out and a baby on the way—he wanted to make me the greatest dolphin trainer in the history of Christendom. I will accomplish this first and then come back to this unfun, sorry excuse for a game.